Public Release: 11-Mar-2015 NatureTetanus shot improves patient survival with brain tumor immunotherapy
An innovative approach using a tetanus booster to prime the immune system enhances the effect of a vaccine therapy for lethal brain tumors, dramatically improving patient survival, according to a study led by Duke Cancer Institute researchers.
NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 11-Mar-2015 EpidemicsUrging HPV vaccine for boys could protect more people at same price
Whether vaccinating US boys against HPV in addition to girls is worth the cost has been hotly debated. But with HPV-related cancers in men on the rise, and coverage in girls stagnating below the levels needed to ensure that most people are protected, research suggests that devoting a portion of HPV funding to boys -- rather than merely attempting to improve female coverage -- may protect more people for the same price.
National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Duke University

Public Release: 11-Mar-2015 Nature'Quantum jitters' could form basis of evolution, cancer
Duke researchers have discovered 'quantum jitters,' in which DNA's four basic building blocks temporarily change shapes, fooling DNA-replication machinery into making a copying mistake. This shape-shifting is exceedingly rare and only flickers into existence for a thousandth of a second. But these jitters occur with the same frequency as DNA copying mistakes, a hint that this might be the basis of the genetic mutations that drive evolution and diseases like cancer.
National Institutes of Health, Agilent Thought Leader Award

Public Release: 11-Mar-2015 PLOS ONEMolecules in prostate tumors might predict whether RT can help prevent recurrence
A new study has identified a group of molecules in prostate-cancer cells that doctors might one day use to distinguish which patients should be treated with radiation therapy if rising PSA levels indicate their cancer has recurred after surgical removal of the prostate.
NIH/National Cancer Institute

Public Release: 11-Mar-2015 PLOS PathogensDeadly to cancer cells only
Parvoviruses can destroy cancer cells and are currently being tested in a preliminary clinical trial to treat malignant brain cancer. For their replication, the viruses need a particular enzyme in the cell. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center have now discovered that in healthy human cells, parvoviruses are unable to activate this enzyme. In many cases of malignant brain cancer, however, the enzyme is permanently active. As a result, this enables the viruses to replicate and to destroy the cancer cells.

Public Release: 11-Mar-2015 Nature CommunicationsHoney, I shrunk the ants: How environment controls size
Until now scientists have believed that the variations in traits such as our height, skin colour, tendency to gain weight or not, intelligence, tendency to develop certain diseases, etc., all of them traits that exist along a continuum, were a result of both genetic and environmental factors. But they didn't know how exactly these things worked together. By studying ants, McGill researchers have identified a key mechanism by which epigenetic factors influence the expression of all of these traits.

Public Release: 10-Mar-2015 eLifeScientists show proteins critical in day-night cycles also protect cells from mutations
New research from The Scripps Research Institute shows that two proteins critical for maintaining healthy day-night cycles also protect against mutations that could lead to cancer. The new study shows that the two proteins have an unexpected role in DNA repair, possibly protecting cells from cancer-causing mutations triggered by UV radiation.
Searle Scholars Fund, Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research, Lung Cancer Research Foundation, NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH/National Institute on Aging, NIH/National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Public Release: 10-Mar-2015 New Journal of PhysicsFractal patterns may uncover new line of attack on cancer
Studying the intricate fractal patterns on the surface of cells could give researchers a new insight into the physical nature of cancer, and provide new ways of preventing the disease from developing.

Public Release: 10-Mar-2015 American Journal of GastroenterologyRegenstrief study finds natural language processing accurately tracks colonoscopy quality
An accurate system for tracking the quality of colonoscopies and determining the appropriate intervals between these procedures could contribute to both better health outcomes and lower costs. Clinician-researchers from the Regenstrief Institute have created and tested such a system in the nation's first multiple institution colonoscopy quality measurement study utilizing natural language processing and report that it is as accurate but less expensive than human review.
VA Merit Review Grant, American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Covidien Senior Investigator Mentoring and Career Development Awards, Mamlin-McDonald Biomedical Informatics Fellowship, Regenstrief Institute Innovations Award

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 Nature MethodsNew gene sequencing technology like a high-powered microscope
A new gene sequencing technology known as 'Capture Sequencing' allows us to explore the human genome at a much higher resolution than ever before, with revolutionary implications for research and cancer diagnosis.

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 Cancer CellChildhood leukemia study reveals disease subtypes, new treatment option
A new study of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a blood cancer that primarily affects young children, has revealed that the disease has two distinct subtypes, and provides preliminary evidence that about 13 percent of ALL cases may be successfully treated with targeted drugs that have proved highly effective in the treatment of lymphomas in adults.
National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Cancer Institute, Hyundai Hope on Wheels, St. Baldrick's Foundation, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Tucker's Toy Box Foundation, William Lawrence and Blanche Hughes Foundation, and others

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 NatureRadiation plus immunotherapy combo revs up immune system to better attack melanoma, Penn study suggests
Treating metastatic melanoma with a triple threat --including radiation therapy and two immunotherapies that target the CTLA4 and PD-1 pathways -- could elicit an optimal response in more patients, one that will boost the immune system's attack on the disease, suggests a new study from a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Penn's Abramson Cancer Center published today in Nature.
Abramson Cancer Center, Melanoma Research Alliance, NIH/National Cancer Institute, Department of Defense and Basser Research Center for BRCA

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 The EMBO JournalCancer-linked protein helps control fate of intestinal stem cells
An international group of researchers has shown that a regulatory protein involved in controlling how cancer spreads through the body also influences the fate of stem cells in the intestine of mice. The results show that the Snai1 protein plays an important role in deciding the fate of intestinal stem cells and the different functions that these cells can adopt.

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 Nature NanotechnologyInnovative light therapy reaches deep tumors
Using a mouse model of cancer, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have devised a way to apply light-based therapy to deep tissues never before accessible. Instead of shining an outside light, they delivered light directly to tumor cells, along with a photosensitive source of free radicals that can be activated by the light to destroy cancer. And they accomplished this using materials already approved for use in cancer patients.
National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 The Journal of Mental HealthAfrican-American cancer patients' depression symptoms under-recognized, CWRU study finds
Case Western Reserve University nurse scientist Amy Zhang, who has long examined quality-of-life issues in cancer patients, wondered whether depression in African-American cancer patients has been under-recognized for treatment.Accurately assessing depression in cancer patients is difficult in general because the physical symptoms of cancer and depression -- low energy, lack of sleep and loss of appetite -- are so similar.
NIH/National Institute of Cancer

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 Nature CommunicationsResearchers map 'genomic landscape' of childhood adrenocortical tumors for the first time
In an advance that could lead to better identification of malignant pediatric adrenocortical tumors, and ultimately to better treatment, researchers have mapped the 'genomic landscape' of these rare childhood tumors. Their genomic mapping has revealed unprecedented details, not only of the aberrant genetic and chromosomal changes that drive the cancer, but the sequence of those changes that trigger it.
Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, Kay Jewelers, National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Cancer Institute, ALSAC

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 DNA and Cell BiologyViagra in combination with new drugs can have anti-cancer, antibacterial, and therapeutic effects
Chaperone proteins play an important role in protein folding in human cells and in bacteria and are promising new targets for drugs to treat cancer and Alzheimer's disease and for novel antiviral drugs and antibiotics. How existing drugs such as Viagra or Cialis and a derivative of the drug Celebrex, for example, can reduce the activity of a specific chaperone protein, with the potential for anti-tumor and anti-Alzheimer's disease effects, is described in a Review article in DNA and Cell Biology.

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 Journal of Clinical InvestigationFrom brain tumors to memory: A very multifunctional protein
A protein called BAI1 involved in limiting the growth of brain tumors is also critical for spatial learning and memory, researchers have discovered. BAI1 is part of a regulatory network neuroscientists think is connected with autism spectrum disorders.
NIH/National Cancer Institute, NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Southeastern Brain Tumor Foundation, St. Baldricks

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 Nature Cell BiologyHippo 'crosstalk' may be vital to tumor suppression
Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered new information about a key pathway known as Hippo, a metaphoric name referencing its link to tissue 'overgrowth.' The Hippo pathway has been shown to regulate cell death and cell growth, thus playing a role in the development or prevention of tumors.

Public Release: 9-Mar-2015 CellUnderstanding of cell enzyme flipped on its head
Researchers from Manchester, working with scientists in California, have found that certain molecules long thought to promote cancer growth, in fact suppress tumors, suggesting that therapeutic approaches should aim to restore, rather than block, their activity.